Tukwila pimp pleads guilty, is freed

Published 1:31 pm, Wednesday, September 7, 2011

A 39-year-old Tukwila man accused of pimping a 14-year-old girl has pleaded guilty to a reduced charge and been released from jail.

King County prosecutors had tried to convict Roger Lee Owens, Jr., of prostituting a child, but agreed to the plea deal after a jury failed to reach a verdict following a trial.

A conviction on the original charge would have seen Owens sent to state prison. Instead, he pleaded guilty Thursday to a reduced charge, was sentenced to a year in jail and was then released having already served his time.

Even entering a modified guilty plea, Owens continued to deny the allegations against him. Writing the court, he said he was pleading guilty to take advantage of the prosecution’s offer, not because he had committed the crime.

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At trial, prosecutors contended that Owens supplied a then-14-year-old runaway with cocaine while arranging “dates” for her or putting her on the street to look for “johns.” Owens took the girl in and forced her to work as a prostitute so he could buy cocaine and pay rent on a Tukwila motel room, prosecutors had alleged.

“Sometimes she would have five or six a day – for days at a time,” Deputy Prosecutor Ben Santos said in court documents.

“When (she) would protest, the defendant fed her more crack,” Santos continued. “He never hit or threatened (her). She just did what he said. He controlled her.”

Writing the court, Tukwila Detective Vince Baird said the girl told police she'd met Owens in July. She was homeless, the detective said, and Owens offered to let her stay at a motel room he'd rented.

It wasn't long before Owens pushed her to start "paying" for the room, Baird told the court.

"She stated she was 'manipulated' into smoking crack with Owens daily, and that Owens began to bring males to the room for her to have sex with," the detective told the court.

Owens then forced her to prostitute herself on Military Road, where she solicited drivers and had them come to the motel where she was staying, Baird told the court. Owens would then set up the transaction, the detective continued, and collect the money paid by the men who were paying to have sex with the girl.

The girl said she was terrified of Owens and constantly high on crack he provided to her, the detective told the court.

"(She) said she was scared … but did not want to show it due to fear of being hurt," Baird said in court documents. "(She) stated that she told Owens she did not want to do this. When she said this to him several times he yelled at her and gave her more crack cocaine."

Then, mid-September, Owens was alleged to have raped her while she was in a drug-induced daze, according to charging documents.

The girl had been awake for almost three days at the time, Baird told the court. She remembered little of the actual assault but woke the next morning bleeding and in extreme pain.

According to charging documents, the girl walked out of the motel and found a Tukwila police officer and turned herself in on a warrant.

Arrested in December, Owens was tried in earlier this summer on the child pimping charge. King County Superior Court Judge Regina Cahan declared a mistrial on July 26 after the jury deadlocked.

Pleading guilty, Owens continued to claim innocence, after a fashion, by agreeing that he could be found guilty at trial without admitting he committed any crime.

“I am innocent of this charge,” Owens told the court. “I am only pleading guilty to take advantage of the state’s plea offer.”

Initially charged with promoting the commercial sexual abuse of a minor, pleaded guilty Thursday to the lesser charge of second-degree promoting prostitution. He was sentenced to one year in jail, then released.